Why the church is not growing?

Full Question:

I'm a pastor of a church and we all are praying for a revival for last seven years, in our area. We are in need of a growth in our church. Now there are only 29 members in our church, including kids. Can you please tell me why our church is not growing. Please also mention an effective way to achieve many members to Christ and thus to the church?

Answer:

Even if I'm not a pastor, I can understand your situation of not much members in church. To provide a good answer for your question, I need to know more about the current functioning of your church and its members. Due to the lack of such points in your question, I will try my best to provide an effective method or solution for your problem, based on the basic problems that prevent the growth of your church.

I do believe that the first and most important problem that prevent the growth of your church is the false belief that a church will grow only through prayer. I also know about the testimonies and teaching which make us believe that church will grow only through prayer. It is not a bible based method for the growth of a church. In my opinion this false teaching occurred when certain churches received a revival with no special reasons and they assumed that it was all happened due to their prayers and so on. If any church witnessed a revival after many years of prayer, the fact is that they had wasted all those years and a far better revival.

Bible do not show us even a single revival that occurred only due to the prayer of a church. The most important revival in the bible gives an effective way for the growth of a church. It is the revival in the first century and the first century church growth. Here we can see the apostles and the other disciples of Jesus after receiving Holy Spirit went out and preached the gospel of God Jesus Christ, by performing visible miracles, healing and so on. This is the only reason behind the growth of first century church. It is not only the prayer of apostles that increased the number of members in first century church, but it is also their acts. Even the book of acts is named as 'the acts of apostles', and not as the prayers of apostles. 

There are some churches which know acting is the reason behind a revival, but they don't to how to act. Acts means to work out. The most important thing to work out is to witness Jesus Christ and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Along with acts a good order in the church and behavior of its members is necessary to bring new members and to keep members in the church.

Sharing Gospel: Now a days, many churches think that sharing gospel means only to conduct public meeting with someone preaching from some part of the word of God. These meetings are all just an act of Karma, without any intention to gain people for God. It is like doing something just for Jesus commanded to share gospel. Christians and church which need a growth should change this attitude.

You should teach the members of the church what is gospel and also teach them how to share it to others. There are certain necessary points you should mention while teaching them sharing gospel. Teach them not to criticize others gods and their faith. Teach them not to speak from their life or other's life, for the reason that they are imperfect. Teach them to always concentrate in sharing the core things which include the love of God father, the submission of Jesus, the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and not to take any importance in sharing other useless matter by spoiling their time and interest. Teach them also to share the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in simple ways. Teach them to concentrate on personal evangelism (sharing gospel to a person alone) rather than to focus on crusades. If they are ignorant, also teach them how to make opportunities to build new relationships and to share gospel to others.

Faith: Help them to increase faith of your church members in God so that they may believe that God will surely hear their prayer. Teach them to pray for others shortly with simple words and with interesting points relating to the word of God. Give them the courage and confidence to pray for their sickness, financial crisis, problems and so on. Teach them to keep the things they shared secretly without sharing it to others.

Many Christians now a days believe and satisfy with verses like John 6:44 which says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." You should teach them to remove these kind of concepts and teach them "Father can draws no one to Jesus unless you share the gospel to them." Also teach them to apply John 6:44 to satisfy at times when they really performed their best to achieve a person by sharing gospel and by praying for them. And teach them also to use John 6:44 to give glory to God when a person is saved, for the fact is it is not only our labor, but God is the one who drew that person to him.

Prayer: Teach the members of your church to pray for the people whom they shared gospel, from their heart. Teach them not to make long prayers in front of them, but to pray privately to all of them one by one, submitting all their problems. Teach them to pray for themselves also for receiving the power of Holy Spirit to share the word of God with much boldness. Tell them to pray to God to use them more and to be an available tool in the hand of God.

Expectation: Teach them not to expect the repentance of all people whom they shared gospel. Because, if they make such great expectations and when they saw it not working, they may lose their faith and get tired quickly. According to me, a good calculation is to expect only one person, if you shared gospel and prayed seriously for ten persons. I said it because in bible we can see Jesus Christ is satisfied by the return of the one person from the ten leprosy patients he cured.

Care: Teach them also to take care of the people whom they shared gospel. Tell them to show their love and care for them. Teach them to share necessary things to them like food, finance, job and so on, if they lack it. But also tell them to take care not to change their focus from Jesus Christ to the material things which they share. Teach them to be a good friend of them and also a friend in need to be with them especially on situations which they cannot handle. By all these caring, teach them to change their primary focus to Jesus Christ and to depend him for their needs.

Welcome: Teach the members to invite the people they shared gospel to the church. Tell them to do their best to bring at least one new soul to the church on each Sunday. Don't reject or depress those who fail to bring one, but exhort them and give them faith and hope to continue sharing gospel. Also care not to impose the believers to do so.

Your part: There are also many essential things which you need to do along with teaching them these things. You should not behave like a preacher of this world after teaching them all these things. It is because preachers of this world preach great things and perform nothing in action. So you should not only teach them these things. You should also study the things I mentioned and you should also start sharing gospel and try your best to bring at least one person to church each Sunday, by your own labor. You and your family should become a role model for all the things which I mentioned above and do not take any exceptions for you are the pastor of the church.

You should always remember that new believers coming to your church are the result of the grace of God and also due to the labor of the members of your church. If you don't treat all new believers with all care and love, the members of your church won't tolerate it, for those members are the result of their hard work. For that you should make all the activities in the church interesting. You should share interesting messages from Bible, conduct good worship service and all. Don't continue doing things, if you found people bored on your words. Don't give same messages repeatedly even if it is about basic things. Share to cover points like repentance, water baptism, Holy Spirit and its importance one by one on every Sunday and cover it by one month and repeat it every month.

Organize some special meetings for the church members and share small messages to them. Hear what they experienced on sharing gospel and praying for others. Teach them to be leaders of the people, they gained. Don't compel any person to get into ministry if they are working or something, but teach them to share gospel and to bring his co-workers or co-students to Jesus Christ and to the church.

Don't take all your life to teach your church members these things. A one month is appropriate according to my opinion. Within a month, teach them these things and start sharing gospel in your area. May God bless you and its members, with this answer to achieve more people to your church. And let your church be a model for other churches too.